Lessons Learned: Planning a Give Away

Pro tip: Test out your brilliant blog ideas before you share them with the world.

So a funny thing happened to me on my way to the Stats page today. My Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life post has garnered 32 views and 21 shares on Facebook. That surpassed all of my expectations, so I was excited to start compiling my list of people for the drawing. I am fairly tech savvy, but I couldn’t figure out how to see the names of the people that shared the post on Facebook. Imagine my horror when I googled “people who shared my wordpress blog,” and found out 30 seconds later that you cannot, in fact, get to that information.

As I skimmed through the forums I realized I’m not the first person to make this assumption, and I probably won’t be the last. Some of the tips said to just pick someone at random without acknowledging the error, but this blog is all about personal growth and learning so I think it’s important to share my failures too.

Apology time for all the people who have already taken the time to share my blog post with their friends. Sorry! I really appreciate your time and effort, and I am sure you are excited for a chance to win the book. I am going to amend my previous post and ask that anyone who has shared it to please leave their name in the comments. This seems like the best way to make sure I can still do a drawing.

If you have a problem with this alternate method of selection, please leave a comment below and you will still be entered into the drawing. 🙂 The winner will be announced on Wednesday.

Hopefully, we’ve all learned something from this. The next time I try to give something, I will be sure to test out my method of award.

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
― L.M. Montgomery